Is the Rapture Real?

The rapture. The very concept strikes fear in the hearts of more than a few religious fanatics. It has been used to fuel the imagination of millions throughout history, spawned a best-selling fiction series, and has been used in countless sermons.
And it's all based on a lie.

Eat your heart out Harold Camping.

The reality is that this teaching was not widely spread until the 1830s. Doing a little research, one finds out that the doctrine was traced back to a Scottish minister named Edward Irving. According to legend, he came across certain writings and published those writings in the church paper. It came to be that a few years later, while he was preaching, a young girl named Margaret MacDonald fell down and went into some kind of trance. When she came to, she stated that in a vision, she saw Christ's return - only there would be two returns - the first one a 'secret' rapture. This doctrine soon became very popular in England. Decades later, John Darby also comes under the influence of this secret rapture and eventually meets and befriends C.I. Scofield, who would write the Scofield Reference Bible. In it, he wrote his commentary and included the secret rapture dogma. The folks reading their Bibles also read Mr Scofield's notes and took that as also being Word of God. The rest, as they say, is history. Read the two articles here and here.

Read about someone's account of how he totally believed that the rapture could happen at any moment and how he eventually found out he was incorrect - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-hunt/nobody-is-getting-left-be_b_5926886.html

So, are you rapture ready?